UAE Dewa keen to participate in Egyptian Energy Projects

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority is looking to take part in energy projects in Egypt and keen to lend its expertise.

“We are an established company specialised in the fields of energy and research and looking for other projects,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive of Dewa. “We thought, why not Egypt?”

Waleed Salman, Dewa’s executive vice president of business development, said that Dewa would most likely enter Egypt with its joint venture partner Dea Group of Germany (formerly RWE).

Dewa and RWE had formed the partnership in 2012 to offer energy consulting services in the region.

“[The joint venture] has approached some entities in Egypt to advise them on the consultancy side,” Mr Salman said.

Investor interest in Egypt has surged on the heels of last month’s Egypt The Future conference. Many multinational companies such as Germany’s Siemens and General Electric of the United States made major announcements for plans to construct US$20 billion in power projects, although none of the agreements signed are binding.

These projects would fall under the fast track power plan announced in January by Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El Sisi. The initiative aims to combat the country’s growing electricity crisis by doubling power generation capacity to 30 gigawatts by 2020.

Many of the power generation projects include natural gas and coal-fired plants while the country looks to add more renewable energy into its power grid.

Egypt has targeted 20 per cent of its power generation over the next five years to include renewables such as solar, wind and hydropower.

To catapult the green sector, Egypt also created a feed-in tariff, a financial incentive to help propel the market, in November.

The Norwegian consultancy group DNV GL is bullish on its outlook on Egypt’s energy market.

“The Egyptian market is on the brink of some industry changing renewable projects right now,” said the company’s area manager, Sliman Abu Amara. “Removing the barriers to both solar and wind energy adoption is essential to strengthen Egypt’s local energy production.”

Mr Al Tayer said that there was no specific project in Egypt that Dewa was looking at, but Egypt fell in line with the utility’s overall energy goals, specifically in the field of renewable energy.

He said that “if the opportunity arises” then Dewa would be ready.

Source: The National